matrix theology

I wanted to share a discussion I’ve been having with someone.  It is from a bulletin board on my friend Steve’s church’s website.  Somehow or another, I got into this dialogue with a guy I have never met; and I mentioned something about my education.

PaintdWlf: The quantum particles are said to be in “superpositions”. They colapse into reality once observed. So far there is no known way to be or construct an objective observer. Interaction with consciuosness is the trigger, subjectively.  Your individuation of consciousness looks out upon everything else, day to day speaking. If God is the still point around which everything revolves, who are you really?

erikd: whoa – I haven’t seen so many big words in close proximity since my last seminary class…which is why I kinda abandoned the whole concept of systemic theology.
PaintdWlf: You were in seminary? Please share, what were your courses of study? Systemic theology…have you learned enough to abandon such persuit? You are not alone.
erikd: I was indeed in seminary. As a point of fact, I have a Masters of Arts in Christian Studies – which serves essentially to hang in my office and look impressive. I completed my course of study, but I changed my major from theology to pastoral ministry because I felt that systematic theology does nothing to help people and the impression I got from Jesus was that he was more interested in helping people than in being theologically or politically correct.
erikd: My original intention after undergraduate work had been to go to the University of Chicago or Brown and study Egyptology and Levant archaeology. I find that most literature about the Biblical world is either extremely out-of-date or just plain incorrect, especially in Christian literature.  Things prevented me from that path (the will of God, perhaps) so I pursued theology instead. But honestly, my heart is in history.

Even though I really have no idea how we got on the subject of my course of study in seminary, it was kinda of a blast from the past for me.  I remember standing on the platform the night before my graduation and telling everyone that I wanted to study archaeology and ancient cultures.  And every summer I seem to revisit that dream and start shopping around for schools.

Ultimately, it was a matter of convenience.  I did not want to move my family to Rhode Island or Illinois to spend $40,000 a year on a course of study that is not really in demand anymore.  I have had to satisfy myself with reading whatever I can whenever I can and taking an odd course here and there…oh, and the whole seminary thing.

What gets me more than anything is the ignorance with which Christians in general approach their own Bible.  They are blissfully unaware of the context of the things they claim to be God’s Words.  Most get their “historical” research from sources that are a hundred years old – often written before archaeology even emerged as a refined branch of anthropology.

We are all too willing to put our theology before everything, often re-interpreting passages of Scripture based on a theological conclusion rather than on any kind of historical research.  Take for example, Jesus’ statement about “the gates of hades” in Matthew 16:18.  There are all kinds of theological explanations of this statement, but if you do a little research, you discover that in the Hellenic culture “the gates of Hades” was a fairly common euphemism for a cultic shrine in various religious practices.  In particular, “the gates of Hades” in Caesarea Philippi was a cave where people worshiped a number of gods.  Jesus was standing there, overlooking the actual “gates of Hades” and making a literal statement.  The assembly of believers is greater than the assembly of the worshipers at the gates of Hades.  People would be drawn to the ROCK of the church rather than the gates of Hades.

The Gates of Hades in Caesarea Philippi

The more historical context you research, the more alive the Scriptures become – and to be honest the less theological they are.  We want to see some deep theological statement about Satanic warfare or something, but Jesus was simply using his own context to comment on the power of the Kingdom.

I cannot tell you how many Sunday School versions of Biblical narratives are so far removed from their actual context that it makes me sick.  Unfortunately, these children’s versions of the facts affect our adult understandings.  We think in terms of the visual cues we are exposed to as children.

Far from making Bible teaching boring, understanding the context and conveying it to folks often makes the Bible much clearer and more real.  It takes the Bible out of this “mystical” setting and places it on a firm foundation in the reality we live in.  It allows the Scriptures to be more than just a book of theology – and I would argue whether there really is a such thing as “theology.”  I am not so sure God really wants us putting together systems to try to understand him.  Before too long, we’re worshiping the system rather than God.

If anything, I think pastors should study history instead of theology.  They should be immersed in the worlds (notice the plural) of the Bible and not in the systematic teachings of theologians who probably never cracked a history book except to get a random source for something they already believed.   Knowing the languages and cultures in which the Scriptures emerged isn’t just a nice thing – it is a necessary thing.  Otherwise, we are no better than the medieval church that twisted the Biblical narratives to their own schemes.